Breathe in Stone
by paperology
Summary: Classical myth AU - Castiel is a sculptor who crafts a man from marble, more beautiful than any living being. So beautiful, he falls for it himself.


_A/N: This is based on the classical myth of Pygmalion and Galatea, about a sculptor who falls in love with his greatest work, and then Aphrodite gets involved and it's a party. There is also non-graphic sex. Enjoy._

* * *

><p>People are too flawed, Castiel thinks.<p>

From his window, he watches a woman lift her skirts in the street, her dark, kohled eyes seeking out a passing stranger, and then she's taking his hand and leading him away to some dark establishment, nothing but hunger in either one's eyes – for a few minutes of hollow pleasure…for a coin or two to add to the dozens more she makes every day. Everyone, even the children rolling stones in the street to catch a passerby unawares, seems to live for their basest instincts. It's not even a question for them between beauty and wisdom or the easiest form of self-destruction.

Castiel thinks that humans may be _born_ pure and faultless, but unfailingly time and the struggles of life wear them down, make them ugly and corrupted. He laments for them, truly, but he refuses to let his pity turn him into another one of the broken.

It's why he spends so much time away from them, sequestered in his workshop.

He's never alone – his companions surround him, their alabaster figures frozen in motion, gazes unseeing, skin cold to the touch. Yet Castiel would rather be amongst them than the tarnished souls outside of these walls. They are beautiful, and the faces of his friends will never be contorted by malice, or lust, or inebriation. He would keep every one of them forever, if it weren't for the need to continue creating more of them. Castiel wouldn't even care for food or sleep, if it weren't for the fact that his body would forbid him to even lift the hammer and chisel.

Thus every so often, when the last block of marble is gone from his supply, or when his vision starts to waver without proper nourishment, Castiel sells one of his darlings to some wealthy merchant looking to fill a spare alcove with anything even remotely tasteful.

It makes him cringe to think about it – one of his silent peers languishing in a shaded corner, after its patrons have stopped sparing it even a glance, until it becomes as much an invisible fixture as the wall behind it. It makes Castiel feel like a negligent parent. He's sending his children away to questionable fates, but it's the really the only way he can keep _seeking_. Because that's what it all is – a pursuit to know beauty in its most undiluted form. Castiel's sculptures are beautiful, without a doubt; those who have even the slightest knowledge of his trade have hailed Castiel as a master, a genius at the way he captures the emotion, from the curve of a tender smile to the stance of a man longing to be reunited with his lover.

Some of the women that come by his workshop with their husbands and fathers look upon his works, and then upon _him_ with something akin to longing, like they think he holds a key to the elusive sentiment their own men fail to provide them. They tell him that he must be as beautiful in his heart as he is to their eyes, that he himself must _feel_ so deeply to be able to breathe the verisimilitude into his sculptures.

But he doesn't understand any of it. He _knows_ instinctively the look on a girl's face when she first falls in love, and how a man gazes upon his wife when he returns home from battle, but he hasn't the faintest idea of what the feeling is behind his stony friends' countenances. It's what Castiel looks for every time he puts the chisel to a formless hunk of marble, hoping that he can chip away at it until the answer emerges from within and tell him the meaning of his gift. He supposes it was bestowed upon him by the gods, this inexplicable knowledge of the heart as it's seen on the surface, but only ever on the surface. Castiel believes they left it incomplete.

He's lost in his musings when a knock sounds at the door of his workshop.

Castiel glances at his companions. He isn't expecting anyone, but his friends make no indication that they are either.

Just as he's rising to answer, dual fists begin pounding on the door impatiently.

"Open up, Castiel! I have a surprise for you," comes Gabriel's muffled voice.

Gabriel is Castiel's supplier, a shrewd man with direct connections to various foremen at quarries all over the mainland. If it weren't for his ability to turn up such high quality marble for a fraction of the cost of other suppliers Castiel's worked with, he's not sure he'd voluntary put up with Gabriel's unsavory lifestyle choices, not to mention his unnatural preoccupation with Castiel's personal life.

"Unless you've got a woman in there, well then what I have is just underwhelming. But by no means stop on my account; I can just come back la-"

Castiel swings the door open and stops the man with an unamused frown. "Gabriel."

"Aww, and I was starting to get all excited for you too-"

"You have something you want to tell me?"

His supplier's face switches from feigned disappointment to childish delight in a fraction of a second, a look that never ceases to trigger a sense of unease in Castiel.

"A shipment came in from Penteli today, my friend - some of the whitest, finest-grained marble I've ever seen in all my years." Gabriel reaches out in front of him with his eyes closed, stroking some imaginary stone he's conjured from memory. "You were the first person I thought of, Castiel – there's no one I'd rather have working on something this first-rate. By Hades, I'll _pay_ you to take it….alright, I can't actually, but I'll let you have it for next to nothing. How's twenty-five drachmae sound?"

Castiel gives it some thought. He _is_ running low on his medium of choice, but the last sale he made was a while ago and as always, he's reluctant to part with another of his beloved statues.

"Twenty. I haven't even seen it myself."

His supplier's grin twitches upward, before he lets out a dramatic sigh. "How can I say _no_ to that face?" he cries, hands closing around Castiel's cheeks with a loud slap. "Fine, fine, twenty it is. I'll have it brought to you in an hour; I trust you'll have payment ready?"

Castiel nods, his frown mashed between Gabriel's unyielding hands.

"Marvelous!" And then Gabriel is already walking away, shouting back over his shoulder.

"Sculpt us a pretty broad, will you, Castiel? One with curves to rival Aphrodite herself, or that woman from last weekend…" Gabriel's voice fades away, but he can still see the stout man pantomiming an ample bosom over his own flat torso. Castiel turns and walks back inside when Gabriel's hands start gesturing towards his rump; sometimes he thinks his supplier is half the reason he has no faith in humanity.

His friends are turned toward him in sympathy – Castiel dips a washcloth in water and approaches each one of them, wiping the dust from their forms, allowing the light to pierce through their lustrous skins until they seem to shine from within. There are nine of them now – male and female figures, from youthful fullness of face to the contented creases of age, transfixed like they'd fallen in love with Medusa herself and happily accepted their demise for a single chance to look into her eyes.

Castiel weaves between them, whispering in their ears as he works. He grouses about the heat of the day, his exasperation with Gabriel's intrusiveness, and then as always, he listens to their replies.

His stone effigies answer him with consoling smiles.

It's all he needs to hear.

* * *

><p>The cart arrives exactly on time, delivery crew included; a happy customer is the only thing Gabriel puts before wine and women, and it works for him. Castiel directs the slaves to place the hulking rock on a platform he's set up in the middle of his workshop, while the steward counts the twenty coins Castiel's given him.<p>

Satisfied, he thanks Castiel on his employer's behalf and leaves the sculptor to evaluate his purchase.

The marble block stands a cubit taller than him, its surface grimy from the transport. Castiel takes the washcloth from before and starts wiping at the rugged surface, the water running down the side and leaving behind an ivory trail.

The pure whiteness of it shocks him; Castiel pours the remaining water in the jar over the rest of the block, which now glistens in the light of the open window.

All his other sculptures, lovely as they are, are swirled and veined with grey silt and beige sand. The rock in front of Castiel now is so pellucid he swears he can see straight into the heart of it.

He picks up his hammer and chisel, and tentatively carves into a corner…the stone shaves away from the tip as smoothly as bark from an olive tree. He digs the chisel in again, each practiced strike sending white rock tumbling down, a snowstorm building in his frenzy.

From there, an otherworldly compulsion takes over, a turbid image swirls into Castiel's mind and then his body becomes nothing more than the hammers and chisels it wields.

* * *

><p>Selene's moon waxes and wanes twice before he lets go of his tools again.<p>

After the first week, Gabriel comes by for a customer satisfaction call, and he finds the sculptor hunched over the altered block of marble, a glazed look in his eye. He realizes after a glance at the empty plates and cups surrounding Castiel's feet that he's out of food, and when the sculptor ignores his presence entirely, he decides to send one of his own people to bring food each week and clear away the debris that Castiel leaves around his work.

The sculptor hews and chips away at the block like a man possessed, which Gabriel supposes he is, and Castiel only stops when his arms can't lift anymore, when his stomach gnaws away at him from the inside, when he nods off and blinks back awake, arms wrapped around the body that's finally taking shape. In those rare moments, he'll mindlessly consume whatever Gabriel's servant has brought, ease his sore muscles with a hot bath and lay down on the pallet in his workshop only long enough to curb the weariness he feels.

A few weeks before it's complete, Castiel sends the servant away, with a message to Gabriel that he won't be receiving any visitors until he's done. Gabriel allows him that; the servant has also informed him that the statue is of a man, and is already the most handsome entity, creature or object, that she has ever laid eyes upon. He still sends food, and leaves it outside Castiel's workshop. Whether the sculptor receives it, or whether it's pilfered by some lucky beggar, he'll never know.

* * *

><p>Castiel slowly comes back to himself as he's polishing the surface of his work with the stone <em>patina<em>. He's lost track of how many times the sun has risen and set, and somewhere in the back of his mind, there's a nagging feeling that he owes Gabriel a handful of drachmae for all the bread and cheese he's found lying around.

The fine stone smoothes the marble to a soft shine, sliding in the grooves beneath each rib, grazing the steep ridges of the hips and sweeping across the planes of an expansive chest.

And then it's done, and Castiel, crouched inches away from the statue's foot, realizes that he doesn't even know what he's created. He remembers carving and filing every detail into the marble, each and every angle that he bore into shape with his own hands, but he finds that he can't put it all together in his head.

Castiel rises, eyes still glued to a magnificently rendered toe, and finally ventures to look upon the entirety of what has consumed him these past two months.

He stops breathing.

The man stands a bit taller than him with his body is angled away, but his eyes are pointed straight into Castiel's, their hooded gaze arresting. For a long while they don't let Castiel break the connection, but when he does, his eyes sweep over a strong, aquiline nose, cheekbones so high they cast shadows on the whiteness beneath, a chin subtly cleft and jutting out proudly. His lips, even in stone, seem to be made of what Castiel thinks the gods rest their heads on, opened slightly and swollen. The hair has been painstakingly crafted strand-by-strand, shorter along the sides and swept back over his forehead, silken spikes in perfect disarray.

Castiel's gaze travels over the smooth planes of his chest and shoulders, barely contained strength rippling underneath the alabaster skin. He continues farther down, over the slopes and hollows of his abdomen, where his hipbones flare out slightly and lead down to his manhood, over powerful thighs and feet that look ready to spring from the base the rest on.

The man has one hand reached out to Castiel, upturned in invitation, the other resting at his side. His body is angled like he's prepared to walk away, but has turned at the last second to entreat his maker to join him. And yet the look on his face gives him up, says that he never intended to leave without him, the brow furrowed in earnestness and the barely visible clench of his jaw betray a fear that his outstretched hand will not be taken.

For all the virility the figure exudes, it's the gentle bow of his lips and the softness of his eyes that give him an epicene beauty, facets of both sexes reflected in the gleaming stone.

Castiel wants to touch.

So he does.

The maker meets his masterpiece in a brush of fingers, until Castiel is close enough to intertwine his with his statue's and settle into the space between the solid body and its extended arm.

Castiel is momentarily awed at how seamlessly their bodies slot together. The man's gaze is still fixed on him in this arrangement, and a new, unfamiliar compulsion strikes the sculptor.

He leans up and presses a kiss to the pillowed lips.

When he finally pulls away, Castiel notices the faint lines at the corners of his eyes, subdued mirth contained within.

_He will join his nine brothers and sisters_, Castiel thinks. _But they are pale imitations of beauty next to him…he is, incomparably, the chief of the ten._

_That's what I will call him._

_Dean._

* * *

><p>He sends for Gabriel the next day, after he sleeps through the whole night in Dean's arms, buffered from the evening chill by his protective gaze alone.<p>

His supplier comes to call late in the afternoon, as the last rays of sunlight bathe Dean's form in an aureate glow befitting of his splendor.

"You've…you've truly outdone yourself this time, Castiel," Gabriel breathes, standing before the statue. "They will sing paeans to your name for generations to come, just for this alone."

The words make something in Castiel's chest seize. "I don't wish for others to see him," he bursts out.

The other man turns his gape towards Castiel. "My friend, you intend to keep such exquisiteness under lock and key? Such beauty is meant to be _seen_, Castiel, it's meant to bless those that chance to look upon it. Surely the gods did not grant you your artistry so the fruits of it could be hidden away-"

The idea of common folk, even others who think beauty is an expensive cream imported from the East, laying their sullied eyes upon this divine monument makes Castiel feel physically ill.

"I- I need you to leave now, Gabriel. I'm sorry…I have to look after him, I'm sorry-" Castiel ushers his bewildered supplier out of his workshop, the man still trying to catch glimpses of the marble deity as the door is shut in his face.

Safely alone, Castiel spins around and runs back into the light, throwing his arms around Dean's neck. He presses desperate kisses to his lips, whispering frantic promises to keep him close, to keep him worthy in this wretched world, no matter what it requires from himself.

In return, Dean holds him aloft, conviction running both ways.

The sun sets again with Castiel's body wrapped around that of his champion.

* * *

><p>Resolute as Heracles before the Hydra, Dean reaches out to his master in perpetuity. Castiel wishes he could give his whole self and more to this divine hero, wants to spend eternity at his feet and exalt him with every breath of his mortal lungs.<p>

He sells his nine companions, one after another.

The earnings are barely warm in his pockets each time Castiel strides through the agora, heaping them upon the vendors, traders from far off lands and craftsmen with their delicate baubles.

He returns home to his lover, arms overflowing with his offerings.

Castiel slides amber and gold rings onto the slender fingers, wraps bands of metal and ivory around the robust arms, drapes deeply-dyed silks from the Far East over the shoulders. He dips his fingers in jars of perfumes of rare incense and myrrh and anoints the pale forehead, daubs the heady fragrance wherever his hands can reach.

A bed arrives at the workshop to replace the dreadful pallet Castiel used for himself. It's soft and spacious, and Castiel swathes it in rich woolen blankets and downy pillows. At night he lays his lover's head upon them, and nestles into the stony crook of his elbow where he remains under Dean's watchful gaze, until the dream world beckons him away.

Even there, Dean is all he sees.

In his dream, Dean comes to life.

His ivory countenance shifts, his limbs move of their own accord, his fingers close around Castiel's when he reaches for him. Dean embraces him first, moves in for a kiss as Castiel is frozen with wonder.

They dance, they dine together, they make love. Afterwards, they lie in bed, where Dean whispers his devotion into Castiel's ear until the sun rises.

When he wakes from the nebulous dream, Castiel's hands rest against cold rigidness.

No matter how many times he kisses them, Dean's lips do not yield as they did, and his arms refuse to fold around him.

He begs at length on his knees for Dean to speak to him again, to utter but a single word, but there is only silence, and the sound of his own weeping.

Castiel cannot comprehend why he feels as though he's lost something before he even found it, nor the fierce yearning to reclaim it, but it consumes him all the same.

* * *

><p>Word travels to Gabriel about the sale of the other nine statues, and he pays Castiel another visit to see if he's reconsidered debuting his <em>magnum opus<em>.

The door opens a fraction after he knocks, bloodshot blue eyes peeking out from the darkness.

Gabriel actually hesitates at how wrecked his erstwhile client looks. "Has all that marble dust finally gotten to you, my friend?"

The blue eyes narrow querulously. "Leave us alone, Gabriel."

His use of the plural pronoun doesn't escape Gabriel's notice, whose hand shoots out to catch the door before it closes again, and pushes it open fully.

"Come now, Castiel, you were always my best customer, and I dare say I still consider you a friend. Will you at least hear what I've come to say?" It takes almost all his conscious effort not to let his eyes flicker to the adorned figure situated behind Castiel, nor to comment on the desolation written into the sculptor's unkempt state.

When Castiel says nothing and instead stares at his own feet, Gabriel continues. "The –uh– the festival of Michael is tomorrow, and you know, god of love and beauty and all that…that's your style, right?"

Castiel's feet must be really captivating; he looks nowhere else.

"Ah- well, for the usual monetary donation, they've got dancing women and all the wine you can drink, not to mention all the free love – those temple priestesses sure aren't the virgins they claim to be – but, er, if that's not your thing, there's always the human sacrifices….what I'm saying is that you should come. Please?"

In truth, Castiel _has_ attended the festival every year – even he knows that they're all at the mercy of the gods, and an appeased god is one that won't smite you or curse you with a shoddy set of chisels. And he could stand to leave the workshop. It's becoming unbearable to be around Dean when his steadfast stare only makes Castiel ache for something more.

"Alright."

Gabriel looks as if he's not sure he's heard right. "Alright! Alright is good. Alright is great!" Castiel thinks he can see a restrained urge in his supplier's eyes to reach out and kiss both Castiel's cheeks, but thankfully he keeps his hands to himself.

"I'll be around tomorrow afternoon to fetch you, then. We're going to have a great time, you and I, and you'll be wondering why you've stayed cooped up in your workshop all this time when you could have been living it up with me!" he assures him giddily.

Castiel smiles politely and bids Gabriel farewell.

That night, he sleeps a troubled and dreamless sleep.

* * *

><p>The festivities are already in full swing by the time they arrive at the temple grounds the next day. Their fellow Cypriots bustle about through the smell of wine and of meats roasting on the spit, the heady scent of merriment and debauchery filling the air.<p>

Gabriel buys him a portion of seasoned lamb from a vendor, and drags him to the edge of a gathering crowd.

"What's happening?" his supplier asks, bracing his hand on Castiel's shoulder to try and compensate for his small stature.

Castiel peers through the row of heads before him. There is a girl standing in the center, her head bowed as if in meditation. Her waifish form is draped in swathes of fabric the color of wild anemones, and her body is still as stone, only her raiment moving in the passing breeze.

Minutes pass, and the people around Castiel begin murmuring with impatience. Suddenly, a drum beat rings out the same instant the girl's head flicks up, eyes staring directly into Castiel's. One arm reaches forth, then another, and then her whole body leaps into the air as the drum speeds her movements with each pulse.

The voices around him die out, until all Castiel is aware of is the drumbeat like thunder, hair the color of lightning and the billowing vestments undulating like a storm at sea.

He is entranced. She must be one of Michael's priestesses, granted this unearthly grace with which to entertain the god himself - no doubt he is among them now, reveling in the enthralled faces of his subjects.

The priestess' limbs bend and roll, pouring her garments away like water and exposing the milky flesh beneath.

The drum builds up in speed, and the girl's movements in turn, until even her feet cannot meet the rhythm, and she plunges to the ground, the last beat dying in the sudden silence.

The other spectators eventually disperse, but Castiel cannot turn his eyes away. The priestess is still lying prostrate on the ground, the swathes billowed around her. He wants to see her rise again, wants to see her fluid limbs course through the air once more as desperately as he wants his own immobile statue to return to life.

He registers a tug at his tunic. "Some show, huh? Those priests of Michael's always bring out the good stuff for this festival. Speaking of which, how about we go find us some of that wine?"

Castiel lays a hand on Gabriel's shoulder and answers distractedly. "You go on ahead...I think I'll go to the temple first and make my offering before the crowds take over."

The shorter man shrugs under his hand. "Suit yourself - you know where to find me. If I'm buried under a pile of women, don't be alarmed - it just means I've accomplished what I came here to do."

And then he pulls at Castiel until the sculptor finally turns to look at him.

"Will you be all right by yourself?" he asks, earnest furrow in his brow.

Castiel smiles at that - it's the closest he's ever seen Gabriel to looking like a mother hen. "I will be fine, thank you, my friend. Now go lose yourself to depravity and carnal relations or whatever it is you came to do."

Gabriel grins back and slaps him heartily on the shoulder. "You're a good man, Castiel. Go find yourself a voluptuous woman too," he instructs before walking away to the nearest cache of wine jars.

* * *

><p>The temple consists of an open courtyard surrounded by lofty columns, and a smaller, covered sanctuary in the back. It's in there that the shrine to Michael resides, and it's where Castiel heads directly, passing the merchants selling sacrificial doves, libations and other trinkets to offer up to the god.<p>

There are a handful of worshipers inside the sanctuary when Castiel steps inside the marble entryway, smoke from the braziers in every corner clouding the air. Their eyes are all upturned towards the colossal stone effigy gazing imperiously back at them, and no doubt they're imploring their god for a handsome, rich man to take them as his bride, for a happier marriage to their ill-tempered wife, for time to be turned back on their rapidly-fading looks.

He approaches the altar before the impressive idol, fashioned by someone long before Castiel's time. Its splendor is what first drew him to the trade long ago, tucked behind the legs of his mother, the statue high above filling a small boy with a sense of awe and terror.

Castiel notes the myriad other oblations brought to please the god, the flame burning tenaciously in the middle, then plucks a small figurine from his tunic and sets it down amongst them. It's an ivory replica of the piece in his workshop, nowhere near as glorious as the archetype, but Castiel still cannot suppress the urge to brush his thumb over the miniscule features.

He steps back and shuts his eyes. "_Immortal Michael," _Castiel whispers,_ "ye who can make man slave with one kiss from his paramour, and woman dive into the sea for her lost lover, ye who has spoken though the works of my hands - if thou canst grant all things, I pray to thee, grant me the embrace of-"_

He hesitates, afraid to say what he truly desires.

"_-Of one like my marble prince."_

It is all he can say aloud, and Castiel sinks to his knees where he remains until the sun touches the horizon, countless other devotees streaming past him.

What he doesn't know is that the god has already seen his acolyte's finest work, was even involved in its creation. He knows what it is that Castiel really desires in his heart.

_And it is divine enough_, Michael thinks, _to be_ _a vessel worthy of a god._

When Castiel finally stands and leaves the sanctuary, he doesn't see the fire on the altar flare thrice, one burst after another in affirmation.

* * *

><p>Gabriel was nowhere to be found, but Castiel figures his venture must have been successful and he'd been happily asphyxiated by a horde of temple virgins.<p>

The sculptor returns alone to his darkened workshop where Dean awaits him, bathed in moonlight.

Castiel sighs at his beauty for the umpteenth time and strenuously bears his marble bulk into their bed, lighting the candle nearby. As he wonders if Michael heard his prayers, he leans in and places a habitual kiss to cold lips.

Only they're not cold.

Nor are they marble.

He's convinced he's fallen asleep already, but Hades can break open before he lets this go again, so he wraps his arms tighter around Dean and sinks deeper into this dream.

The lips are soft and they press back, coaxing him in until Castiel feels drunk with sensation. He only breaks away to breathe, but descends again immediately to place more kisses over Dean's cheeks, his eyes, his nose, all the while smoothing his hands over Dean's hair until it parts under his fingers, until he can weave them into the silken strands.

He carries on his ministrations, moving over every inch of ivory skin until it yields like softened wax, yet the veins resume their roundness when he releases; he brushes his lips all down Dean's body until they're raw. He doesn't stop until he places one final kiss at the base of Dean's foot, panting with exertion and no small amount of euphoria.

Two warm and muscled hands grip his shoulders and slowly raise him back up.

When the rushing pulse in the back of Castiel's head finally calms, he finds himself staring into eyes the color of forest moss.

This is beyond anything Castiel's ever imagined, ever dreamed. In all his fantasies, Dean's skin was never so warm, and his eyes never glowed with feeling like they do now.

He never felt so _human_.

"Hey, Cas."

The half-smile Dean gives him is unfamiliar, but it looks so _right_ on the face Castiel's fallen in love with, feels as right as the name that rolls off his lips.

Castiel whimpers in response.

The half-smile turns into a full one, with teeth and creases radiating from the corners of his eyes. By the candlelight, Castiel can see things the marble never could show before, a sprinkle of freckles across his golden cheeks, untrimmed roughness along his jaw, hair the color of sand when the tide ebbs.

"I suppose you weren't particularly chatty before either," Dean laughs lightly.

He's _speaking_, and it all seems too much, like he could melt away or freeze over again, and Castiel needs to touch him and keep him from doing either.

But he gets as far as laying a hand on his jaw when Dean nuzzles into it, eyes flickering shut, and Castiel can hardly breathe, much less move again.

Dean takes Castiel's hand from his face and reaches for the other one, staring intently at them and running his fingers over the lines and calluses.

"You don't know how long I've wanted to touch these hands…how long I've waited to caress the fingers that made me, that know every curve and corner of my body," he whispers, brushing his mouth across the knuckles.

Castiel shudders, the sensation setting his nerves alight. "I think…I think I have some idea," he murmurs.

Dean's eyes flicker up at the sound of his voice, and Castiel swallows at the raw hunger in them.

Then Dean's mouth is suddenly upon him, Castiel's hands falling unceremoniously into his lap until they're clutching back at his lover, feeling the strength lurch under his soft skin and the growing, almost unbearable heat under his own.

As Dean lowers him down onto their bed, caressing every exposed part of him, Castiel is dizzy with wonder: of how this man that has never drawn breath into his lungs before this night knows him so intimately, or how he himself feels like Dean is both an old lover and a complete stranger all at the same time.

Dean gently divests him of the rest of his garments, and makes a strangled sound when he finally sees Castiel as uncovered as his maker has always seen him.

It makes Castiel wish he had more to peel away, wish he could open his chest and lay bare his heart if not just to hear Dean make that noise again.

"I want to know your body as well as you know mine," Dean rumbles, and it's all Castiel can take – the fire under his skin has to go somewhere, and Dean's body is the outlet he needs.

He situates himself between Castiel's legs. There's oil to ease the way, an unavoidable twinge of pain, and then Dean is sliding home. He doesn't move at first, just stares into his maker's eyes will an awed look on his face, which Castiel knows is mutual because he can see himself reflected in Dean's blown pupils.

And then he shifts, slowly, and then faster, his eyes never straying, and the rapturous feeling of him inside Castiel erases any remaining doubt that this is fantasy, that this is still just something his mind has made to torture him.

Then Dean reaches down to grip him, and Castiel squeezes his eyes shut at the blinding flash he sees.

"No – let me see you, Cas, _I want to see you_," he hears Dean pant.

He opens, the green eyes coming back into focus, and then he's falling, a dizzying spiral out of the flesh itself, and Dean leaps in right after him.

When he finally resurfaces, Dean is laying at his side, looking as sated as he feels. Still, he reaches out and folds Castiel into his arms.

"I don't think I ever knew you in _that_ way, Dean," he murmurs into his lover's chest, where he smells incense and myrrh, and he feels the laugh reverberate under him.

"Well, I guess this has been entirely unfair, and now the score needs to be evened," he says roguishly, rolling out from underneath and when he applies his broad hands back onto a stunned Castiel, the cry the sculptor utters is anything but distressed.

* * *

><p>The first rays of sunlight are already creeping into the room when they're finally too drained to even kiss.<p>

Sleep meant closing his eyes, and Castiel didn't want to stop seeing him, still doesn't want to, but his body is betraying him now, even as he fights it.

Dean has him in his arms, face buried in his hair, his own eyes drifting shut. "_I'll be here when you wake_," he promises.

He mumbles other words, but Castiel is finally letting go now and he hardly hears what Dean's saying. But somewhere amongst them, he still picks up on two, and then he knows that he _gets_ it now; he finally knows what it is that they feel.

"_Love you."_

He falls asleep with the sense that his gift, the gift the gods bestowed upon him long ago, is finally complete.

**End**

* * *

><p><em>AN: So much for not writing anymore before the season 7 premiere! I've always liked this myth, and then I came across it the other day and then this happened. Blame my inner Classical Studies junkie._

_About the part where Cas names Dean – a name meaning website told me that the name Dean comes from the Latin word 'decanus', meaning 'chief of ten'. Cool stuff._

_Also, Cas hand-porn. That is all._


End file.
